We are about 10 hours into our Q’anjob’al lessons. It’s fun, but hard. We have a private tutor, and are spending a lot of time up front learning how to make the five or six sounds that don’t exist in either Spanish or English. I never imagined I’d be trilingual, but I guess that’s what we’re working towards.

Being an ancient Mayan language, Q’anjob’al has some peculiarities that are worth sharing. Today we talked about articles… you know, “the”. In English, there is just one: the. Spanish is trickier: el is for male things, la is for female things. German is worse, because they have things that are male, female, or neuter: der, die, das all mean “the”. Q’anjob’al outstrips all of these languages, having more than a half dozen ways to say “the”. And instead of being based on an arbitrary idea of things being male or female (in Spanish, a table is female, a lime is male, etc. Go figure.) the nouns are grouped by what they are made from. They say “the” differently for the following groups of things:

• things that come from plants (bannana, leaf, etc.)
• things that come from trees (wood, house, etc. Not to be confused with the previous group)
• things that come from or are animals (dog, meat, bone, cow, leather)
• things that are made of stone or metal (rock, hatchet. Also applies to technology, such as cars and radios)
• things made of earth (mud, adobe, clay, earthenware)
• things made from corn (tortilla, mosh, cornstalks, field corn, etc.)

It’s kindof quaint, but really gives insight into how the culture operates, and has for thousands of years. Their universe is made up of these basic groups. What’s interesting is when their ancient language collided with modernity, starting a few hundred years ago. Cars and airplanes and radios, for which they usually adopt the Spanish noun, often get a “the” that goes with “things made form rock.” Likewise, it’s interesting to see that “things made from corn” are SO important that they get their own article; corn is revered here in a way that makes Nebraskans hang their heads in shame.